Almost anyone can drive a car, but not everyone gets paid for it. Drivers are responsible for everything from driving customers from point A to point B, to delivering packages to clients, you have a range of what exactly you want to be driving. If you're going to be delivering packages, you'll want to build up your upper body strength in case you have to lift heavy objects.
As far as driving people around, you might want to brush up on your communication skills, either that or blast your music during the ride. Some drivers are especially helpful to tourists who are curious about the area. In these instances, your favorite restaurant or activity might come in useful.
The hours you'll work as a driver can range dramatically. Your work schedule will depend on who you're working for and if you're able to set your own hours. There are some companies where you'll work 60 hours in 7 days, but other companies will only require 40 hours. If there's anything to take away from being a driver, it's that the job is nothing less than interesting.
How to Become a Driver
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a driver. For example, did you know that they make an average of $15.64 an hour? That's $32,528 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 2% and produce 30,100 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Driver Do
There are certain skills that many drivers have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed customer-service skills, math skills and patience.
How To Become a Driver
If you're interested in becoming a driver, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 17.5% of drivers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 1.6% of drivers have master's degrees. Even though some drivers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a driver. When we researched the most common majors for a driver, we found that they most commonly earn high school diploma degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on driver resumes include associate degree degrees or diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a driver. In fact, many driver jobs require experience in a role such as cashier. Meanwhile, many drivers also have previous career experience in roles such as truck driver or delivery driver.
Driver Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of certified nursing assistant you might progress to a role such as team leader eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title superintendent.
Average Salary for a Driver
What Am I Worth?
Top Skills For a Driver
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 13.3% of drivers listed safety rules on their resume, but soft skills such as customer-service skills and math skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Driver Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Driver templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Driver resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Driver Demographics
Driver Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among drivers, 17.0% of them are women, while 83.0% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among drivers is White, which makes up 64.2% of all drivers.
- The most common foreign language among drivers is Spanish at 71.2%.
Online Courses For Driver That You May Like
EV Components Motors Battery management system Charging technology Electric Vehicle testing Practice problems...
Why are hybrid vehicles still more common than battery electric ones? Why are electric vehicles still more expensive than conventional or hybrid ones? In this course, you will get the answers to this and much more. While electric motors can improve vehicles regarding performance, energy consumption and emissions, they suffer from high cost and weight of batteries. Smart combinations of electric motors and combustion engines in a hybrid powertrain can combine these strengths with the advantages...
Engineers in the automotive industry are required to understand basic safety concepts. With increasing worldwide efforts to develop connected and self-driving vehicles, traffic safety is facing huge new challenges. This course is for students or professionals who have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or similar and who are interested in a future in the vehicle industry or in road design and traffic engineering. It's also of value for people already working in these areas who...
Best States For a Driver
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a driver. The best states for people in this position are Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii. Drivers make the most in Massachusetts with an average salary of $40,795. Whereas in Oregon and Washington, they would average $40,082 and $39,371, respectively. While drivers would only make an average of $39,356 in Hawaii, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Alabama
$34,385
Avg. Salary
2. Iowa
$36,436
Avg. Salary
3. Oregon
$40,082
Avg. Salary
How Do Driver Rate Their Jobs?
3.0
3.0
Sucks • August 2019What do you like the most about working as Driver?
Independent. I'm my own boss. Show MoreWhat do you NOT like?
The money is NOT coming in as fast/regular as i need it to. Show MoreTop Driver Employers
Most Common Employers For Driver
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Knight Transportation | $64,550 | $31.03 | 3,062 |
| 2 | C.R. England | $63,701 | $30.63 | 1,325 |
| 3 | Schneider National | $63,665 | $30.61 | 1,152 |
| 4 | Western Express | $60,572 | $29.12 | 626 |
| 5 | J.B. Hunt Transport Services | $42,552 | $20.46 | 1,656 |
| 6 | Advance Auto Parts | $39,819 | $19.14 | 614 |
| 7 | Fort Gordon | $38,445 | $18.48 | 733 |
| 8 | Werner Enterprises | $38,290 | $18.41 | 1,357 |
| 9 | First Student | $36,726 | $17.66 | 878 |
| 10 | MV Transportation | $35,154 | $16.90 | 1,716 |
Driver Videos
Becoming a Driver FAQs
How long does it take to become a Driver?
It takes 5 years of professional experience to become a driver. That is the time it takes to learn specific driver skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education.
How does a driver get paid?
A driver gets paid a salary or by the mile, depending on the industry. Delivery truck drivers and passenger vehicle drivers typically get paid salaries since they work the usual full-time 40 hours. However, drivers for taxis or ride-hailing vehicles get paid depending on a couple of factors.
Is being a driver an occupation?
Yes, being a driver is an occupation. There are a variety of drivers in different industries, and they operate all kinds of vehicles, either carrying cargo or passengers.
Types Of Drivers And Their Typical Duties:
What does a driver do in a car?
A driver in a car does ride-hailing. For example, they drive for taxis or major ride-hailing companies such as Lyft and Uber.
The car can be a small car that fits 1-4 passengers or a van that fits up to seven passengers, not including the driver. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, they pick up and drop off passengers, for a fare, on an unplanned basis. Both are summoned via a central dispatcher or at a designated pickup location. Taxis use a meter to calculate the fare, whereas, for ride-hailing cars, drivers are paid based on time, distance, and tips, with occasional bonuses.